Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

In 2018, Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter shared a moving speech at a Bioneers Conference. Cullors is a performance artist and award-winning organizer from Los Angeles, and is one of the most effective and influential movement builders of our era. She was a key figure in the fight to force the creation of the first civilian oversight commission of the LA Sheriff’s Department, but is most widely known as one of the three original co-founders of Black Lives Matter and for her recent, best-selling book, “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.”

An Oil Spill Runs Through It: Corporate Power and the Sliming of American Democracy | Jeff Clements, John Bonifaz, and Dr. Riki Ott

Hosted by marine biologist Wallace “J.” Nichols, research associate, California Academy of Sciences; co-founder, OceanRevolution.org; author of Blue Mind. New ways of understanding our relationship with the world’s oceans and the ability of healthy waters to provide health, happiness and creativity will be considered by a panel of athletes, scientists, artists, and adventurers. With: Kevin Weiner, post-doctoral fellow, Stanford University and Director of Public Communication, Institute for Applied Neuroscience; Nik Sawe, doctoral candidate, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University; and Andi Wong, Teaching Artist, Rooftop Alternative K-8 School.Recorded Sunday, October 19, 2014 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

As lion populations crash in Africa, baboon numbers explode. Associate Professor of Ecology and Conservation Justin Brashares illuminates how to stem the cascading harms of nature out of balance. Visionary author Mary Ellen Hannibal recounts inspiring stories of citizen scientists restoring health to “the spine of the continent” from Alaska to Mexico by connecting nature back to itself.

The Original Instructions represent the ancient empirical wisdom of Traditional Ecological Knowledge earned over generations and millennia by people living closely with the land and each other. They also comprise disarmingly simple counsel: be thankful, enjoy life and attend to the inner pollution that results in outer pollution. Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke, John Trudell and Evon Peter voice these ancient instructions, which hold the keys to our survival as a species in the historic transition to a truly sustainable world.

The brilliant, award-winning contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Journalism professor and best-selling writer Michael Pollan, author most recently (May 2018) of How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, had a fascinating conversation back in 2001 with renowned anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis on the co-evolution of people and plants. Michael explained the importance of gardening to human evolution and Wade shared his insights into the centrality of plants in cultures from the jungles of Borneo to the secret “zombifying” herbal mixtures of Haiti. (2001)

Daphne Miller, MD, had long suspected that human wellbeing and how our food is produced are intimately linked. She visited and studied seven innovative family farms around the country on a quest to discover the hidden connections between how we grow our food and our health, and she published her findings in "Farmacology: Total Health from the Ground Up" (also the basis for the award-winning documentary In Search of Balance). (Daphne begins speaking at 44:00.) Joining Daphne to discuss how farming techniques from seed choice to soil management have a direct impact on our health will be: Timothy J. LaSalle, Ph.D., co-founder and Co-Director of the Regenerative Agriculture Initiative at CSU Chico and first CEO of the Rodale Institute (Tim begins speaking at 3:50); and Josh Whiton, a highly successful eco-tech entrepreneur whose most recent project is MakeSoil.org (Josh begins speaking at 25:35). Hosted by Arty Mangan, Director of Bioneers’ Restorative Food Systems Program.

It’s a fact of life that communities of color and low-income communities suffer the worst environmental damage. Urban planner Greg Watson, physician Martha Arguello, and activist and scholar Carl Anthony show how these communities have found practical ways to reclaim the health and wellbeing of both their places and their health.

Until recently, it has been very difficult to get approval for serious research into “mind-manifesting” plants and drugs. Leading figures in the field describe that potential and the status of current research. Hosted by Kat Harrison; with Ralph Metzner, Charles Grob, Mariavittoria Mangini, Ph.D., and Alicia Danforth.

The seminal co-founder of Green Chemistry, John Warner, and his esteemed partner, green chemistry educator Amy Cannon, are co-founders of the groundbreaking green chemistry education non-profit Beyond Benign. They’ll show how the combination of green chemistry and biomimicry in the STEM curriculum provides a unique opportunity to inspire students to make connections with the natural world and to use that inspi- ration to become creators of truly sustainable products and processes. They’ll focus on techniques and resources for adopting green chemistry and biomimicry throughout educational systems, highlighting K-12 and higher education programs aimed at transforming STEM education.Recorded Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.